Södertörn Lecture: John Durham Peters

On April 23, John Durham Peters will give an open lecture at Södertörn University, on “Philosophy of Technology , 1964/2014”. The lecture is part of the series Södertörn Lectures, to which prominent international scholars are invited, and which later are published.

Wednesday, April 23, 13-15, MB 503, Södertörn University, Campus Flemingsberg

Södertörn Lecture: Philosophy of Technology 1964/2014

Abstract: The human meaning of technology was one of the great questions of the postwar world and remains urgent in a day of ubiquitous computing. 1964 was an annus mirabilis in the philosophy of technology, witnessing the publication of a number of books that are just as, or even more, relevant as they were in 1964 by authors such as Marshall McLuhan, Stanislaw Lem, André Leroi-Gourhan, Norbert Wiener, Herbert Marcuse, Jacques Ellul and several others. This lecture will critically examine the legacy of these books in order to illuminate the contours of our current digital condition.”

John Durham Peters is a professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa, and recognized as an internationally leading scholar in the fields of media history, communications and social theory. Among his publications are Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication (1999) and Courting the Abyss: Free Speech and the Liberal Tradition (2005).